Learning to pay attention to the present from a very in-the-moment dog.

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

Just do it

After 27 years in our house, we're redoing our kitchen, and I have Mr. James to thank for it. Or rather, Mr. James, and a rusted-out door hinge.

The small galley kitchen in our 80-year-old house is vintage, and not in a good way. For years we've talked about new cabinets, countertops, a dishwasher, maybe taking out a wall and changing the layout... but never made it past the talk. One reason is that it's pretty much all or nothing - you can't replace the sink without taking out the tile-set-in-cement countertops, you can't replace the countertops without damaging the cabinets, putting in a dishwasher meant taking out cabinets and countertop. So making any change required a lot of dollars, but even more troublesome, a lot of decisions.

Would we like wood or white cabinets? Soapstone or granite counters? Stainless or black appliances? What would help the resale value (never mind that we're not planning to move any time soon)? I was paralyzed by the choices and what seemed, given the cost, to be earth-shattering implications.

Then a few weeks ago, a hinge on the cabinet door under the sink rusted out. My husband could find nothing to replace it available these days, so the choice became: redo the kitchen, or live with a dangling cabinet door along with everything else that's wrong with the room.

So, I've faced the decisions, and inspired by my four-legged mentor who lives in the moment, realized it just isn't worth all the angst. The fact is, once we do this work, future changes will be a lot easier. More important, whatever we choose, it will be a whole lot better than what we have now.

That's 27 years of standing at the sink developing dishpan hands, worrying about what-ifs, that would have been much better spent with a good book and a glass of wine while the Whirlpool hummed in the background.

So bring on the white cabinets, quartz countertop, glass tile backsplash and stainless appliances. It will be good enough, and no better time than right now to begin.

1 comment:

Love your blog moments, Linda (and Mr. James). Your aspirations mirror my own these days, trying to be more present and open to this moment rather than perplexed about what is to come. And our bathroom remodel-- or lack thereof, is reminiscent your paralysis with decisions to be made.